Elust kogukondades

Suled või glamuur

For Tomorrow Paradise Arrives

Trash is piling up worldwide. To save the environment and the future of their children, young mothers have decided to find food for their family from supermarkets’ trash bins.

The Circle

The film follows a group of adults and their children who in the summer of 2014, decide to leave their customary life arrangement and start the first intentional eco-community in Estonia. They scrap together their savings and buy an old manor lot with 33 hectars of agricultural land and 3750 square meters of half-derelict houses. Their experiment was inspired by the growing movement of global eco-villages. They step out of society as we know it, deconstructing the basic pillars of life, from nuclear family, to education, to relationships and consumption. Their goal is to build non-violent co-operative relations among themselves, harmonious relations, and sustainable life style with a small footprint. The film follows the dramatic events in the community for 5 years, from their blissful idealistic beginnings in 2014 until their dramatic collapse in 2019.

Celebration

The town of Maardu in Estonia organises an annual Ukrainian-themed festival, called "Sorochinsky Fair"; after the short story by Nikolai Gogol. More than 15,000 people come every year. This is the largest Ukrainian fair outside of Ukraine, and it has even been entered into the Ukrainian Book of Records. The film is structured like a work of literature, being made up of a number of interconnected stories. The full variety of the fair and beauty contest is presented from different angles and viewpoints: that of the festival organisers; the actor playing Gogol; the instructor from the local beauty school; the visitors; and the filmmaker, who puts on an improvised casting session for the contest participants. The film then culminates in the beauty contest itself. The protagonists of Gogol's works are transported to the modern day in all their enchanting absurdity, and they fit in pretty well. Children dancing to adults' cult pop songs, girls putting on exotic dresses in their efforts to win "Miss Maardu", men playing the role of beauty experts, an actor in a Gogol outfit conversing with phrases from a memorized speech, modern-day versions of folk songs and costumes from Ukraine and the Baltic states. The documentary is a kaleidoscope of incidents and viewpoints, observed with engagement and curiosity.

Soviet Hippies

A wildflower power ride on the footprints of the Soviet hippie movement takes you into the psychedelic underground of the 1970s. In search of freedom and happiness under the thumb of the strict political regime a colorful crowd of artists, musicians, freaks, vagabonds, and other long-haired dropouts created their own System in the Soviet Union. Years later, a group of eccentric hippies take a road journey to Moscow where people still gather annually on the 1st of June to commemorate a tragic event in 1971, when thousands of hippies were arrested by the KGB.

14 Cases

A feature documentary taking a fresh look at the present-day Russians living in Estonia. The film focuses on personal stories of born in Estonia young people who are the descendants of migrants from the Soviet era, representing almost the third generation. Although they lived their whole life surrounded by Estonian national symbols and colours, lifestyle and cuisine, they still speak Russian as their mother tongue, got secondary education in Russian language, listen and watch Russian radio and television, and gravitate towards Russian culture. They feel belonging to the history of Russia and Russian consciousness. Some of them face an identity crisis: a conflict of national identity with civil identity. But most of Baltic Russians feel an awareness of difference, the recognition of being not fully integrated into the society. A lot of Russian high school graduates leave country to study abroad and never return. At the same time there are also those who feel obsessed with languages and cheated by the politics but love and prefer to live in Estonia.

Anthill

Anthill is a portrait of a giant garage located in the largest Soviet blockhouse area of Tallinn. Here 700 garage box owners form an extraordinary men’s club and vary from those who just keep their cars to those who adapt their boxes for living. The complex is a unique biosphere with the existence of private saunas, a restaurant, an animal clinic and other artifacts of life stuck in time 20 years back.

Better Tomorrow

Six years after Finland opens up it's job market to new EU member states, a considerable number of Estonians have left their poorly paid jobs in Estonia in search of a better tomorrow in Finland. A bag that's always packed, a bed in an anonymous room, a kitchen that's used by countless people – these are lives on permanent standby. This is a story of a house near Helsinki, where ten Estonians live on the ground floor and Tomi, their employer, a Finn and a true Estophile, on the second. Tomi wonders why the Estonians don't do much with the free time on their hands or soak up the local culture, the Estonians however have a whole set of other concerns.

New World

Anatomy of a revolution: this is the story about people, relationships and a big change. The New World is a district in Tallinn where there is a group of young active people - some consider them noisy roisterers, some think that they are some gang of hippies, and some take them as heroes. The members of the New World Society started as an anarchistic group of urban guerrillas whose mission was to fight for healthier and more car-free environment, causing issues of public order. However, at some point their efforts were crowned with appreciation, attention and financial support. What will be left of craziness when it has to be packed within a project at some point? How is it possible to keep alive the creative chaos throughout years? What about human relationships that won't obey the project logic?

Potato Republic

Artist and event organizer Tarmo Ladva wants to achieve his goal to establish Potato Republic in Laanemetsa village, Taheva parish that is located in a peripheral region of Estonia. Potato Republic would serve as a museum to introduce potato as the symbol of Estonian food and to remember history. His high-flown ideas about creating a bath cinema and heritage theatre, however, get stuck due to financial difficulties and general skepticism. The man full of enthusiasm won't give up and gives it another try.

Vanad kalad

Kind Hometown Spirits

As a result of the initiative of the youth programme of Estonian Television, a phenomenon such as "Hometown" was born in Estonia in October 1975. Tens, hundreds, even thousands of schoolboys and schoolgirls gathered in the old town of Tallinn on Sundays in order to get some easier jobs done, to explore the miracles in the old town, to edit their own newspaper, to organize meetings, excursions etc. and to get to know each other better. Leida Laius tries to find out how the young member of Kodulinn movement and their leader Tiina Mägi are doing at the beginning of 1980s. Tiina Mägi, Raivo E. Tamm, Hannes Astok, Epp Alatalu, Ulvi Pihel, Madis Jürgen, Mart Kalm and others talk about the acitivites of the movement.